SPREAD YOUR WINGS
Lincoln-Way band members show their colors in Macy’s parade
Denied their visit last year, members of Lincoln-Way High School’s marching band got the opportunity at Thursday’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade to spread their wings and show their colors.
A condensed version of the band’s “Metamorphosis” production had the roughly 200 band members do a quick, yet briefly concealed, costume change toward the end of the parade in front of Macy’s flagship store in New York’s Herald Square.
The band learned in spring 2019 that it had been chosen to appear in the parade, but the COVID-19 pandemic reduced that to essentially a TV-only event.
That invitation carried over for this, the 95th installment of the parade, which again had spectators lined along the parade route.
All told, 200 students, 24 parent chaperones and 12 staff members along with the directors made the trip, which included visits to other New York landmarks during the stay, according to Cary Ruklic, one of the band’s directors.
Other directors are Bert Johnson, Justin Barnish and Chris Mroczek.
The group left Nov. 21 from Frankfort on five coach buses loaded with luggage, uniforms, instruments, drums, flags, banners and one large piece of fabric that played a role in the band’s Macy’s performance, Ruklic said.
Over the course of an eight-minute show, “Metamorphosis” depicts the transformation of band members from green caterpillars to multicolored butterflies.
For the performance in New York, the band had to condense that to just a bit over one minute, Ruklic said.
The key element of the performance, what Ruklic calls the “magic trick,” was when a large swath of fabric was draped over the band to allow them to perform a split-second costume change.
When the cloth is pulled back, the band members have transformed from cater
pillars into butterflies. Band members honed and perfected the change since “Metamorphosis” was first proposed for the LincolnWay group more than two years ago.
The band performed it last month when it went on to win the Illinois State Marching Band Championships in Normal, with a score that was a fraction ahead of another perennial Southland marching power house, Marian Catholic.
It was the third straight year Lincoln-Way took home the top honor.
The “Metamorphosis” production was more than two years in the making, Ruklic said, but when the band learned it wouldn’t be in the 2020 Macy’s parade it put it aside. The pandemic severely curtailed the band’s ability to perform and maintain proper social distancing, he said.
In place of “Metamorphosis,” the band put together for 2020 a new production, “In this Together,” that was written specifically to work with state and local COVID19 guidelines, he said.
Following the 2016 closure of Lincoln-Way North High School in Frankfort, the district’s three remaining high schools in Frankfort and New Lenox combined to form one community marching band.
Following their New Year’s Day 2019 performance in the Tournament of Roses parade in Pasadena, California, band members learned in April 2019 that Lincoln-Way had been selected for the 2020 Macy’s parade.
School officials, including band directors, had known in advance about the school’s selection, which was kept a secret until an announcement during what was supposed to be a relatively routine startof-the-season meeting at Lincoln-Way East in Frankfort for band members and parents. Much of the meeting discussed plans for the new “Metamorphosis” production band members would be rehearsing.
The status of last year’s parade appearance was up in the air for “quite a while as the parade organizers tried to figure out what would be possible given the pandemic,” Ruklic said.
It was a disappointment for the entire organization, but “our 2021 senior class certainly felt the disappointment of the Macy’s trip postponement more than anyone else” as they would miss out on the rescheduled appearance, Ruklic said.
Ruklic said that during their stay in New York City, band members were scheduled to see a Broadway show, visit the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, enjoy a buffet Thanksgiving dinner and a celebratory dinner cruise on the Hudson to close out the trip.
Lincoln-Way wasn’t the only band from the Southland performing in a Thanksgiving parade.
In Chicago’s Thanksgiving parade, bands included Marist High School on Chicago’s Southwest Side, the Thunderbird Marching Band from Thornwood High School in South Holland, a combined band from Brother Rice-Mother McAuley and the Southland College Prep band from Richton Park.